the subject was pressed forward in the following year; and in 1857, the same Society formally, and by an act of the corporate body, prepared a Memorial to the Prime Minister, the President of the Board of Control, and the Directors of the East India Company, setting forth the unwieldy extent of the Indian dioceses, referring to the thousands of native Christians in the province of Tinnevelly, and praying that they would be pleased to advise her Majesty to erect three new Episcopal Sees in India.

We have stated these facts simply to show that this act of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel was no sudden impulsive movement, hastily conceived or executed, but that it formed a part of that consistent policy which it has steadily pursued, since the memorable Declaration of the Bishops in 1841. The admirable results of this system, the good produced, beyond what the most sanguine anticipated, have been manifest to all the world; and so have also the simple good faith and zeal with which the Society has acted, without reference to any party predilections or narrow prejudice. A large mass of evidence and argument, comprised in a Statement appended to the Memorial of the Society, confirms what we say, showing that for years the increase of the Episcopate in India, especially in Southern India, has been pressed on the authorities of the State by persons of every position and every shade of religious sentiment. We shall be excused if we refer to these documents for a moment, in order to show the utter inadequacy of the present Episcopal staff to the extent of country nominally under its rule.

The diocese of Calcutta we find, then, extends in length nearly 3,000 miles, with an area of 1,089,000 square miles, including a population of 136,000,000 souls, and having some 200 stations of small bodies of Christians.

The diocese of Bombay is stated to be 800 miles in length, from north to south, comprising an area of 84,000 square miles, equal to that of Great Britain and Ireland, and having a population of 16,000,000. Madras, yet larger than this, stretches over 1,100 miles in length, with an area of 208,000 square miles, and including a population of 27,000,000. We need but a glance at such facts as these to perceive that the Episcopate of India at present, as a means of practical administration, is little more than a name and shadow; and that the Bishop, for the most part, can be regarded only as an officer of state. Indeed, for the last thirteen years, the late Bishop of Calcutta was unable, through his advanced age, to visit any portion of his diocese north of Allahabad; while, in the diocese of Madras, supposing the Bishop to be on his visitation during all those

portions of the year in which it is practicable to travel,' it would take him three years to visit all the stations which ought to be visited, leaving him not more than three months in each year to reside at Madras ;-this, too, in the diocese in which the great body of the converts to the Reformed Church exists, and where the missions are in a state requiring constant supervision and direction. Hence we find the Bishop of Calcutta, ever since. 1844, pleading for a subdivision of his diocese, and also for a bishop to preside over the infant Church in Tinnevelly.

'Unquestionably' (he writes in June, 1852) a new see at Agra for the north-west provinces and the Punjaub is indispensable, and ought to have been erected from the moment the separate government was established, years since. A second see, for the Christian population at Tinnevelly, would also be desirable; but as the diocese of Madras (now Ceylon is cut off) is vastly less extensive than that of Calcutta, the pressure is not so great.'

So, likewise, the Bishop of Madras, addressing the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in the same year :

'The necessity of the extension of the Episcopate, no man who knows India can dare to deny. A Bishopric for the presidency of Agra, with the Punjaub now annexed, is indispensable... I believe, too, that the erection of bishoprics for those parts of the country where our native converts have become so numerous that we count them by thousands, and where the attention of the Bishop should be exclusively directed to them, would be of incalculable benefit to the Missions.'

In the same tone both the late and the present Bishops of Bombay bear their testimony to the expediency of the measure; the latter, and above twenty clerical and lay residents in Bombay, expressing their earnest desire' to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, 'that the increase of the Episcopate in India may be forthwith accomplished.'

Again, an address of a most remarkable character, to the same effect, has been sent to the Standing Committee of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, from officers and residents at Lahore, Peshawur, Simla, Banda, Agra, Delhi, and other important stations, the number of signatures amounting to nearly eight hundred; and in this prayer several of the Missionaries connected with the Church Missionary Society concurred, whose names are contained in the list published by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel.

These, then, were facts, which, backed by so remarkable a consensus of opinion from all quarters in favour of an increase in the Indian Episcopate generally, and by recommendations from the Bishops of Madras and Calcutta in favour of a Bishop for Tinnevelly in particular, the Society felt it could not dis

regard. Acting, therefore, not so much as a Society, as an organ of the Church, with the concurrence of the Archbishop of Canterbury, it pursued its course as we have stated.

But in the midst of these proceedings, the Church Missionary Society showed signs of a dissatisfied and hostile spirit. We presume that it was in consequence of the representation of the Archbishop of Canterbury early in 1856, on the part of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, that the Church Missionary Society, in April of the same year, drew up a Memorial addressed to the ' proper authorities (on which term we shall have to comment hereafter), acknowledging generally the necessity of an increase of the Episcopate in India; but, after a few remarks on the want of a better regulated Church system in India, ending with the prayer (bearing all the speciality or a lady's postscript)- The Committee would, therefore, humbly 'submit to the authorities who have the control of Indian affairs, an earnest request that this subject may be taken into consideration, and that measures may be adopted for better defining 'the episcopal powers, and the relative ecclesiastical position of the clergy and laity, previously to the establishment of any new Bishoprics in India.'

Nothing followed upon this demonstration; indeed, we may say that it fell dead, and was virtually unknown beyond the walls of the committee-room within which it took its origin. At any rate (for we have thought it right to make inquiry), it was unknown to the managers of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, who, in 1857, proceeded in their course, and addressed their Memorial to the Prime Minister, &c., as already stated, specifying Lahore, Agra, and Tinnevelly, as the points where they thought it expedient fresh dioceses should be erected. Upon this, the Church Missionary Society took a more directly antagonistic step to thwart, if not the whole, at least a part of the desired measure. The proposal for a Bishop in Tinnevelly (for it is no use hiding that this is the sore point) awoke its slumbering hostility to the scheme. The pamphlet of Mr. Symonds, though addressed to the friends of both Missionary Societies, was seized on as containing suggestions which, if carried out, threatened to interfere with the control of the Society over its Missionaries, and was used as an occasion for drawing up, in 1857, an elaborate Statement' (to be appended to the former Memorial of the Church Missionary Society, but going far beyond in its scope),-vague indeed, and disguised even to inconsistency in its form, but very unmistakeable in its aim, -adducing reasons (which, if valid in one case, are equally so in all) against any increase of the Episcopate at the present time, and especially repudiating the appointment of any Bishop

to superintend Missions among the heathen; in other words, denouncing altogether what are more specifically called Missionary Bishops.I

This document we shall have to consider; and we do not hesitate to pronounce it one of the most mischievous, ill-advised papers ever issued by any society in connexion with the Church. Nor can we acquit the Committee of disingenuousness in the way they have sought to justify its publication. In the 'Minute,' forming the third paper in the series, and published this year, they venture to speak of themselves as surprised, as if they had been taken off their guard, by the Memorial of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, in 1857. Yet they had themselves addressed a Memorial on the same subject in 1856, which is in itself a clear confession that they were perfectly cognisant of the contemplated measure; and moreover, so far back as 1852, a joint conference had been actually held of members from the Church Missionary Society and Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, among whom was the Secretary of the former Society, 'to 'take measures for the promotion of the Church and the interests ' of religion in India,'-on which occasion the very first resolution unanimously passed was, ' To press for an increase of the Episcopate in India.' This was followed, as we have stated, by Memorials, in 1853 and 1856, from the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel; yet, when urged again in 1857, the Committee of the Church Missionary Society express surprise at the movement.

6

But looking at the general tenor of the Statement,' we perceive in it a tone of narrow jealousy, which, however natural in sects, is wholly unbecoming any organization within the Church. Whatever the language may be, the whole drift of this paper is to assert for the Church Missionary Society, essentially at least, an authority in the field of its mission co-ordinate with, if not independent of, that of the Episcopate; and, until this is guaranteed, to resist the erection of fresh sees, and the perfect development of the Church's polity, in our Indian dependencies. And, in so doing, we hesitate not to say, it puts the Committee in direct opposition to the Church and its authorities at home. If any principle has received the sanction of the Church in late

1 The papers put out by the Church Missionary Society on this subject are three in number:-1. The 'Memorial' to the proper authorities,' praying for the adoption of some fresh ecclesiastical regulations, before any extension of the Indian Episcopate should take place: dated April 14, 1856. 2. A Statement of the Committee of the Church Missionary Society, to accompany the above Memorial, and setting forth the Committee's views on the general subject: dated April 13, 1857. 3. A Minute of the same Committee, explanatory, and designed to be exculpatory, of the above document: dated March 30, 1858. It is said that a fourth paper has appeared, or is to appear; we presume, in consequence of the severe animadversions from its friends that the Committee has incurred.

years, it has been that embodied in the Declaration of the Bishops in 1841, which asserted the expediency of an extension of the Episcopate in all our dependencies where bodies of Christians are gathered, and specified particularly Northern and Southern India. Moreover, we must remember that the Memorial of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in 1857 was adopted, not by a Committee merely, but by the Incorporated Society itself, by the Board, usually presided over by the Archbishop, and attended by other Bishops, and speaking in the name of the whole body of Bishops, all of whom are members of the Society. The measure thus adopted, the Committee of the Church Missionary Society deliberately repudiate, and adduce three reasons for so doing. It will be said, no doubt, that the same Bishops are members of the Committee of the Church Missionary Society. We are aware that it is so; but this, in truth, only aggravates the evil; and we appeal to the prelates so situated to consider the position in which they are thus placed. The policy for which they are responsible in one Society is now opposed by the other; and we respectfully ask, which they intend to abide by? We beg them to consider their position, and ascertain how it is (by whose instrumentality and rashness) they are placed in conflict with themselves. We beg respectfully to inquire, whether their position as Vice-Presidents of at least one Society is more than a name; and whether they are willing to delegate the authority of their rank and position to its acting managers, and to accept such views of ecclesiastical or missionary polity as these may please to put forth. They are surely bound to examine the matter, and to assert (if they claim it) a voice in so important a question as the fair, legitimate, and necessary extension of the Apostolic office in the evangelization of the world, which, we hesitate not to say, is deliberately repudiated by the Church Missionary Society, in their name, and under their authority, as members of the Committee.

We are quite aware of the answer which will be made to this. We are aware of the professions of attachment which, from time to time, the organs of the Society have proffered to Episcopacy. Even in the Statement' here referred to, the Committee deprecate any inference of their aversion to episcopal authority or superintendence; and as this general answer is deemed, as it seems, sufficient to silence the allegations urged against the sentiments contained therein, we will deal with it in limine.

"The Society,' say they, has always sought this superinten'dence for its missions. It was mainly through its exertions that 'the Episcopate was established in India, in New Zealand, in